1. Field
This invention generally relates to systems and methods for organizing, managing, and graphically displaying multiple logically related entities and, more specifically, in one embodiment, to systems and methods for the real time organization and display of clusters of tracked vehicles in connection with a geographical map.
2. Description of Related Art
As the use of electronic maps to display information has increased in popularity, so has the volume and complexity of information to be displayed. Accordingly, it has become more and more difficult to take in the wide range of data that may be overlaid and viewed on maps without the viewer becoming confused or overwhelmed by the display.
This problem is acutely expressed in the field of map-based or location-based services and tools, where the ever increasingly detailed nature of the information to be displayed, together with the potentially limitless number of sources from which data is gathered, combine to make it extremely challenging to display such information on a map in a logical manner that is accessible and useful to viewers. For instance, the management of large numbers of people and equipment involves obtaining timely information about location, status, and potential alarm conditions. Management preferably wants to be able to observe when and where scheduled events have occurred and how schedules and status have changed since the previous observations, but doing so in prior systems was difficult if not impossible with so much data available. For example, in the field of fleet management, it is desirable to know the status of vehicles in a fleet, where the vehicles currently are, whether the vehicles are operating properly, etc. For fleets with hundreds or thousands of vehicles, such information quickly became overwhelming when accessed through a map-based interface.
Developers have attempted to facilitate the ease of use of such map-based displays by allowing viewers to zoom in and out of the maps at issue; however, this is often an ineffective solution since the problem of viewing an overwhelming amount of data is only amplified as the viewer zooms out to get a more general picture of the data. As a result, in order to make sense of the displayed data, the viewer's only choice is to zoom in so far on the map that important information is no longer displayed onscreen. Other systems simply operate too slowly to meet the demands of full time asset management.